Ember's Song
by TrueKelpa
Summary: Oneshot. Kindof a songfic. My take on Ember's past. I wanted to have a bit of fun with the lyrics to 'Remember', and this is what I came up with. It's not cheerful. You have been warned. Rated T for character death.


***Hi there! It's me again. This is just a little songfic about Ember's past, and a few new verses to the song. Enjoy.**

**If I owned Danny Phantom... *Dream sequence*... but I dont. So there.***

It was, it was September

Wind blows, the dead leaves fall

To you, I did surrender

Two weeks, you didn't call

Your life goes on without me

My life, a losing game

But you should, you should not doubt me

You will remember my name

Your heart, your heart has mended

You're wrong, now bear the shame

Like dead trees in cold December

Nothing but ashes remain

Ember stared at the words on the paper in her hands. What was wrong with them? They had served her well before. During her attempted takeover of the human world, there hadn't been a problem.

"Ember, honey" Her manager began again. "The people want to see the real you! This song's about your past, right? Well tell them more! Show them what you're really about!"

She gritted her teeth. Her manager was possibly the most annoying ghost to have ever existed. Well, except maybe Phantom. And that freakishly weird ice ghost who had kept asking her to be his friend. Come to think of it, there were a hell of a lot of annoying ghosts.

"Look, Manny, I'm a hit! I don't need to relive the past to sell records."

"Not to the humans, sweetie. But the ghosts want more"

"Screw the ghosts! I'm better off with humans anyway"

There was a shocked silence for a moment. Then, Manny's usually kind face grew angry.

"Say what you want, Ember. You're going to extend that song, and it'd better be good!" He hissed, spinning around in the air and slamming the door to her lair closed behind him as he left.

She stared after him, before balling her fists and letting lose a shriek that made the door rattle in its frame. He wanted good? She'd show him good! She snatched her guitar from the ground and felt her fingers form the familiar shape of the first chord as her other hand pulled a glowing blue plectrum from her pocket. She slammed through the intro chords, singing the song, _her_ song, at the top of her voice.

"It was, it was September

Wind blows, the dead leaves fall

To you, I did surrender

Two weeks, you didn't call"

Pictures began to form in her mind as she sang, reliving the past, just like she had said she wouldn't.

_A teenage girl was lying on her bed in her room, the pillow over her face as she tried to block out the shouting from downstairs. After a while it became too much for her, and she threw the pillow back onto the bed, her tears smudging the eyeliner on her face. She stood and grabbed a rucksack, stuffing clothes, makeup, and money inside. She slung it over her shoulder, and swung open her bedroom window, moving out onto the ledge in what was obviously a well-practiced movement. She gripped the gutter around the roof of the house and used it as leverage to swing out, dangling in the air for a second before swaying to the side and wrapping her legs around a drainpipe. She let go of the gutter and latched her arms around the pipe too, carefully shimmying down to the ground. With one last glance back at the house, she fled into the trees that ringed it._

_She walked for a while. She didn't really have a destination, and her parents would surely come and find her before long. They always did. She kept walking, not paying attention to her path, until she looked up to realise that she was alone in a dark forest, with no way out. But of course, she wouldn't let that stop her. She pushed through the trees over and over again, before she saw a flickering light through the trees. A fire?_

_She made her way closer, and soon found that it was a campfire, situated outside a small tent. She moved towards it eagerly. Her already pale skin was almost blue from the cold. As she got closer, though, she saw a figure emerge from the tent. She paused frightened for a moment, but then her stubborn streak won her over, and she pushed on anyway. The figure turned to her, and she saw that it was a boy, about the same age as her._

"_Hey" said the boy, looking her up and down. She shot him a glance, then settled in front of the fire before replying._

"_Hey."_

"_What're you doing alone in the woods?"_

_She looked him over for a second before replying honestly._

"_Running away. You?"_

_The boy's mouth quirked at the corner._

"_Me too. But I actually thought to bring a tent."_

_She hid her smile behind her auburn hair, which was tangled and wild about her face._

"_Maybe I didn't need one"_

"_Is _that_ why you're three seconds from hypothermia?"_

_She stuck her tongue out at him, childishly, and he laughed._

"_What's your name?" he asked._

"_Ember" she told him. "Ember McLain."_

_The boy grinned, before holding out his hand to her._

"_Vlad Masters"_

_She shook his hand carefully. They sat in silence for a moment, staring at the fire. Then;_

"_Why did you run away?" She asked him._

_He gave a hollow chuckle._

"_It's a... very long story."_

"_I've got time."_

_And they did indeed talk for a long time, swapping stories, telling jokes, discussing music. Before they knew it, it was morning. They didn't want to go their separate ways just yet, so they travelled together, still talking. This eventually became a routine; walking during the day, chatting together long into the night. Two weeks passed before Ember finally wondered why her parents hadn't come to tell her off, as they usually did when she attempted to escape. When she realised she might actually have succeeded, she didn't feel as exultant as she had imagined she would. She felt... hollow._

New words seemed to come to her out of nowhere, intertwining with the verses that were already there. She sung them too, louder and louder, until the entire place vibrated with the sound.

"And now my time is ended

Burned out, a blaze of flame

I know that I pretended

But death is a beast you can't tame"

_They were in another forest again. It was the easiest place to set up camp, as there were no trespassing laws, and plenty of wood for a fire._

_They had decided to take an early night for once, hoping to reach Wisconsin by tomorrow night. Thanks to Vlad, they had plenty of food, as he had somehow managed to talk the many shopkeepers in the towns they had visited to give them freebies, and sometimes cash too. Ember had some new clothes, all of them bright white, and had taken to wearing her hair in a high ponytail, instead of down like it usually was. She didn't want to be connected to the life she had left behind miles ago, so had began constructing a new image to match her attitude. They were all set for the long trek, and just needed some sleep to prepare themselves. So they didn't realise that the embers from their campfire were still glowing when they finally got into their tents (Vlad had somehow 'acquired' an extra one for Ember)._

_A strong wind blew through the trees, making the embers glow brighter as dead leaves from the canopy above landed on them._

_There was a moment in which all seemed well... before the dry leaves caught fire._

_It spread quickly, and before long the whole clearing was ablaze, with its occupants blissfully unaware of that fact as they slept. The flames reached Vlad's tent first, and he was awoken by his own coughing fit as smoke billowed into his lungs. Acting on instinct, the young halfa changed into his ghost form and flew out above the trees, before shaking himself and shooting back down between the leaves into Ember's tent. She looked like she was still asleep, but the wind had caused the majority of the smoke to be blown into her tent. _

_Oblivious to the flames, Vlad bent down and pressed two fingers to her neck to check her pulse._

_Then he checked the other side of her neck._

_Then her wrists._

_Then her chest._

_Nothing._

_He stumbled back from her body, horrified._

_And then she said his name._

"_Vlad?"_

_He spun around to see the figure standing behind him, staring, horrified, at her own body. She didn't even seem to notice that he was in ghost form._

_Her eyes were neon green, unlike the purple-blue he was used to. Her new white clothes were jet black, and her skin was a ghostly pale blue. Her green make-up had turned purple, and her hair... her hair was bright blue, and rearing upwards like fire. Her eyeliner was streaked down her cheeks like it had been the day he had first met her; the smoke had caused her eyes to water while she slept._

"_I'm dead?" she asked, looking up at him for the first time. Then she seemed to notice what he looked like. "Oh, God, you're dead too?"_

_In all the time they had spent talking, he had never told her about his ghost half. And he couldn't answer her now. He felt too guilty as she stared at him with pleading eyes, begging him to tell her that this was a dream, that she was alive. But he couldn't. He could only stare as she turned and sprinted away through the flames, leaving him with her dead body._

Tears began to form as she belted out the familiar chorus, her life – and death – still flashing before her eyes.

"Oh, Ember, you will remember!

Ember, one thing remains!

Ember, so warm and tender,

You will remember my name!

Thought I could go on living

Like life's just a state of mind

But death's never been forgiving

That's why you were so blind"

_She wandered the streets, sobbing. She couldn't be dead! She couldn't be a ghost! It was impossible! And yet there she was. Un-living proof. Ignored for the rest of eternity._

_Her life – or afterlife – changed suddenly and completely right then. Because of one, inconsequential happening that she would remember for the rest of her... existence. She bumped into a man on the street. And he turned to her, yelling_

"_Watch where you're going!"_

_He could see her? He could bump into her? She was visible, solid?_

_With that single thought in mind, she headed back home, careful to interact with as many people as possible on the way. It made her feel so... _alive_. _

_Finally after another two weeks of travelling, she made it. She was home. She thought to herself briefly that ghosts surely had to have some quicker mode of transport, but shook it off as she walked through the front door. Literally _through_ it. It was something she had figured out within a week of her death. She could pass through solid objects. She had figured out a few more tricks too, such as invisibility, and, once, she had stumbled through a shopkeeper, and stayed inside him. She had been able to control his movements for a few seconds, and see the inner workings of his brain. Weird._

_She peeked into the living room, where she found them. Her mom and dad. They were both on the sofa in the middle of the room, both crying. She wondered why for a second, before she remembered. Oh, right. She was dead._

The next verse came unbidden, straight from the heart as she relived the painful memories.

"I thought, that I could save you

From the pain in your eyes

To know that I forgave you

For all those dumb little lies"

_She walked slowly into the room, careful not to startle her parents. But they didn't seem to notice her, too grief-stricken to take in the room around them. She wondered for a moment when the police had found her body, but pushed that thought out of her head as she stood carefully behind her mother and tapped her on the shoulder. Her mom spun around with a shriek, and scanned the space behind the chair. There was no recognition in her eyes._

"_Who's there?" she cried._

_Ember suddenly understood. They couldn't see her. Was she invisible? She checked herself. Nope._

"_Mom?" she said tentatively. "Mom, it's me."_

_Her mom didn't make any sign that she had heard her. She tried her dad next, shaking his shoulder, willing him to see her. He too spun around._

"_Dad? Dad, c'mon I-"_

"_What was that?" her dad asked her mom. Her mom simply shook her head in shock._

_Ember was on the verge of tears again. They couldn't see her, they couldn't hear her. What now?_

_Then she remembered the shopkeeper. Could she do the same thing here? She made herself un-solid again (She didn't know what else to call it) and walked through her father. Soon, she could see all his thoughts, and move his body like her own._

"_Mom?" she asked. The voice that came out of her dad's mouth was her own. Her mom gasped and stood up._

"_Em- Ember?"_

"_Yeah, mom, it's me"_

"_But you're-"_

"_Dead, yeah, I know. It's ok. It didn't hurt."_

"_But how..."_

"_Am I doing this?" she finished her mom's sentence. "No idea. But you couldn't see me or hear me at first, so..." She sighed. "I just wanted to say sorry."_

"_What for?"_

"_Running away. Getting myself killed. Everything."_

"_Oh sweetie!" her mom cried. "No, I'm sorry! We were always arguing, and-"_

"_No mom. It's fine, really."_

_Her mom looked at her sadly for a second, before she moved out of her dad and walked through her instead._

"_Dad?" she asked, using her own voice._

_Her dad gave her a strange look._

"_Excuse me?"_

"_Dad, it's not mom. It's me. Ember"_

"_I see" said her dad, still wearing a strange expression. "Ember who?"_

"_Ember who?" she asked incredulously. "Ember McLain! Your daughter!"_

_Her father looked seriously worried now._

"_I don't know any Embers and I certainly don't have a daughter!" he cried. _

_Ember froze. Shocked. Had she somehow damaged his brain when she had used him to talk to mom? She quickly stepped out of her mom, who blinked blearily, and looked at her dad._

"_What happened?"_

"_You tell me! You just said we had a daughter!"_

"_James, don't be ridiculous. I think I would know if I had a daughter." She said, laughing._

_Distraught, Ember fled._

"Your heart, your heart has mended

You're wrong, now bear the shame

Like dead trees in cold December

Nothing but ashes remain

Your life goes on without me

My life, a losing game

But you should, you should not doubt me

You will remember my name"

***Good? Bad? Ugly? Tell me using the fabulous new contraption: The review! Press the blue button down there to get your very own blank review, plus a pre-paid envelope. Am I good to you or what? :D ***


End file.
